Ingeborg Day (née Seiler; November 6, 1940 – May 18, 2011) was an Austrian–American author, best known for the semi-autobiographical erotic novel ''

Nine and a Half Weeks 9 is a number, numeral, and glyph. 9 or nine may also refer to: Dates * AD 9, the ninth year of the AD era * 9 BC, the ninth year before the AD era * 9, numerical symbol for the month of September Places * Nine, Portugal, a parish in the ...

'' which she published under the pseudonym Elizabeth McNeill and which was made into the 1986 film of the same name starring

Kim Basinger Kimila Ann Basinger ( ; born December 8, 1953) is an American actress and former fashion model. She has garnered acclaim for her work in film and television, for which she has received various accolades including an Academy Award, a Golden Glo ...

and

Mickey Rourke Philip Andre "Mickey" Rourke Jr. (; born September 16, 1952) is an American actor and former boxer who has appeared primarily as a leading man in drama, action, and thriller films. During the star of the 1980s, Rourke played supporting roles i ...

Life

Day was born in

Graz Graz (; sl, Gradec) is the capital city of the Austrian state of Styria and second-largest city in Austria after Vienna. As of 1 January 2021, it had a population of 331,562 (294,236 of whom had principal-residence status). In 2018, the popul ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

, in November 1940. Her father, Ernst Seiler, was a member of the Nazi SS organization. She spent the last two years of the war on her grandmother's farm. In 1957, as a high school student, she participated in the

AFS exchange program AFS Intercultural Programs (or AFS, originally the American Field Service) is an international youth exchange organization. It consists of over 50 independent, not-for-profit organizations, each with its own network of Volunteering, volunteers ...

, living with an American family for one year and attending Eastwood High School in Syracuse, New York. She met and married a trainee priest named Dennis Day, and they moved to Indiana, where she attained a B.A. in German studies from Goshen College, and spent several years teaching in Kenosha, Wisconsin. They had a daughter, Ursula, in 1963, and a son, Mark, who died at the age of seven. Day left her husband and moved to Manhattan with artist Tom Shannon and became an editor at '' Ms'' magazine. It was during this time that the affair happened that is portrayed in ''9½ Weeks''. In 1978, she published the novel ''9½ Weeks'' under a pseudonym. In 1980, she published her memoir ''Ghost Waltz''. In 1991, she married Donald Sweet, a man 14 years her senior. They moved to Ashland, Oregon shortly after the wedding. She died by suicide on May 18, 2011, aged 70. Her husband died four days later.

Books

: A Memoir of a Love Affair (1978,

E.P. Dutton E. P. Dutton was an American book publishing company. It was founded as a book retailer in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1852 by Edward Payson Dutton. Since 1986, it has been an imprint of Penguin Group. Creator Edward Payson Dutton (January 4, ...

) *''Ghost Waltz: A Memoir'' (1980,

Viking Press Viking Press (formally Viking Penguin, also listed as Viking Books) is an American publishing company owned by Penguin Random House. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim and then acquire ...

)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Day, Ingeborg 1940 births 2011 deaths American women novelists Austrian emigrants to the United States 20th-century American novelists 20th-century American women writers Suicides in Oregon 2011 suicides 21st-century American women